derivative work

”I’m not pushing to have [ID] taught as an ‘alternative’ to Darwin, and neither are they,” he says in response to one question about Discovery’s agenda. ”What’s being pushed is to have Darwinism critiqued, to teach there’s a controversy. Intelligent design itself does not have any content.” The evolution of George Gilder Boston Globe, 7/27 [...]

EFF15 How I Became a Freedom Fighter — A story in two parts: Part 1: As a teenager in the 80s, I knew libraries were pretty cool. I used them to pursue various odd interests too embarrassing to blog (e.g., the various sequels to The Scarlet Pimpernel). When things were unspeakably tough for me at [...]

Hillary Clinton has jumped all over the Grand Theft Auto downloadable sex mod scandal, apparently in an attempt to shore up her right-wing base and reconnect with the Tipper Gore Fan Club. USA Today 7/14; wikinews 7/17; salon.com 7/22; gtaSanAndreas links to a video of the mod in action]. Ted Frank on Overlawyered reminds us [...]

Ann Coulter recently took some heat in the blogosphere for allegedly ‘plagiarizing’ from conservative magazines in her 6/29 article, “Thou Shalt Not Commit Religion”. [why are we back 7/20; the rude pundit 7/1; Raw Story 7/20] Raw Story “found Coulter’s work to be at worst plagiarism and at best a cut-and-paste repetition of points authored [...]

Radikal Russ on Daily Kos posted about severe cognitive dissonance fostered by Grokster in the secondary liability rules: If a company makes a product that is inappropriately used to illegally copy a movie, that company is liable. If a company makes a product that is inappropriately used to illegally kill a human, that company is [...]

Remember the kerfuffle about the stupidly titled NYT article on bisexuality? (Straight, Gay or Lying? Bisexuality Revisited) The study, to be published in Psychological Science in Aug. 2005, was described by NYT science writer Benedict Carey as suggesting that there are no truly bisexual men, and indeed it seemed as if the study’s authors fostered [...]

The Professional Inventors Alliance USA is freaking out over a proposed patent rule change, to grant patents to first-inventor-to-file instead of first-inventor-to-invent. According to the PIAUSA’s President Ron Riley, this “unconscionable” and “unconstitutional” procedural change will “strip individuals of their constitutional rights and kill American invention”. How might these dire consequences occur? The first-to-file system [...]

nervously i am turning comments back on. spam karma 2 has been catching all the trackback spam, so i’m going to try it out on the regular comment spam. crossing fingers, knocking wood, and steadfastly refusing to walk in front of my black cat. also, i fixed the header problem. i still claim that the [...]

I saw this on 125th St. in Harlem the other day: The RIAA has begun their new ad campaign (leading a new front group called “Music United”). Apparently it’s important for the RIAA to pump money into promoting a trend that is already happening even without ads. (Could it be … that legal downloading is [...]

and now the International Trailer for “Serenity” related posts: yippee yippee

oh, this makes me sad: two teenagers in Iran were executed this week for same-sex sexual activity. M.A. and A.M., hanged in Edalat Square, in the City of Mashhad. [direland; seen on Pandagon] The direland site includes pictures of the young men, who are — were — just kids. i want every fucking government in [...]

In the fourth & final entry in Salon.com’s series on ‘ex-gay’ therapy ministries ['True confessions'], the writer describes how one ex-ex-gay’s attempt to control photographs of him is thwarted by copyright: On the front page of the Exodus International Web site is a photograph of several dozen men and women. The allegedly changed homosexuals, or [...]

I never cease to be astonished by how smarmy politicans can be: today, leaders in the Smarm Community, the anti-choice people (‘pro-lifers’). The latest RU-486 story in the NYT, sensationalistically titled “2 More Women Die After Abortion Pills”, covers two recent RU-486 deaths (two, for a total of five; four of which were probably infection-related). [...]

In today’s NYT article about ‘tattooed fruit’, this line caught my eye: “With the right scanning technology the produce could even be bar-coded with lots of information: where it comes from, who grew it, who picked it, even how many calories it has per serving,” said Fred Durand III, president of Durand-Wayland. “You could have [...]

i was going to write a reference book or do a website about all the interesting stories behind drosophila gene names, and then my spouse told me it already exists: FlyNome – Drosophila Nomenclature. ken, as in barbie – the mutant phenotype is missing external genitalia kenny – dies right away and so on! i [...]

Apparently the PTO is protecting us all from the offensive term “Dykes”. See Jason Schultz; SFGate. Very annoying and what poor judgment. ‘Offensive’ really ought to refer to terms used offensively, as in, attacks on someone or something. The way the PTO interprets offensive — a term that can be used disparagingly — any freaking [...]

The NYT ran two articles today on copies of art, both listed on the front page in the respective sections: One listed in the “arts” section and titled “Imitations That Transcend Flattery” by Roberta Smith, and the other breathlessly titled Own Original Chinese Copies of Real Western Art! by Keith Bradsher, and listed in the [...]

A friend passed me this stamp along with the following message for ‘pro-science subversives’: These stickers are being introduced to increase awareness and appreciation of Charles Darwin. His theory of natural selection provided a simple, non-supernatural explanation for how life on earth had evolved and continues to evolve. Although scientists worldwide view evolution and natural [...]

ahhhh … the sweet smell of spam-free blogging. thanks, unknown genius, for spam karma 2!

The NYT ran this article from New York’s reigning air guitar champ. [NYT 7/"10"] I wonder if these rock’n’rollers acknowledge the debt they owe to drag queens and lip-syncing celebrity impersonators, who have been competitively dragging since at least the 30s? [see Cherry Grove, Fire Island: Sixty Years in America's First Gay and Lesbian Town [...]